Der Arschloch-Faktor

Der Arshloch-Faktor is still hot in Germany. It is currently the top business book and #22 overall on Amazon. I am also getting a fairly constant stream of VERY emotional e-mails from German readers. Most contain troubling stories about acts of oppression and how people are fighting back. A couple are from people who worry that they are assholes -- one asked me how he can go about finding out if he is an asshole. Most are supportive of the book, but I've received a couple from people (who I don't think read the book based on the content, but I could be wrong) that just blasted me and argued that the book was going to make the problem worse ather than better in German organziations. I confess to be a bit overwhelmed by so many emotional emails. If German readers have any insights into both why they book seems to have struck a chord in your country and why the German's who are writing me are even more vehment in their reactions than elewhere, I would be most grateful.

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In Germany, a lot of people still hold and even live the idea of life-long affiliation with "their" company. As a plus, German employment law is much more protective than US law - it is close to impossible to fire somebody for being a "normal" asshole - nasty in a non-physical way and careful enough not to cross the line to mobbing in front of wittnesses. So if you suffer form an asshole colleague, finding out that he shouldn't have been hired in the first place doesn't help. Then realizing you can't get ridd of the asshole isn't encouraging either. Bearing the thought in mind that Germans above a certain age are highly unlikely to change workplace, a lot of readers may find it difficult to view the problem as a temporary one.

I would guess that quite a few people are happy to learn in the beginning of the book that they are right about not wanting to work with those assholes, but later on are not satisfied with the possible solutions to the problem.

In my opinion it´s because german business organisations seem to be representing themselves a little more conservative than in many other countrys.

In your book you´re building a picture of a successful asshole and, as you say, many german business people may recognize they are just like this picture.

I think for this conservatice audience "asshole" or "Arschloch" is still a quite offending term here in germany.

Some people may feel offended by themself when finding they are what you describe (and readers all over the world think is the best fitting term) an asshole. There´s no way out for them but rejecting the truth of your book. ;-)

Maybe a less polarizing title would have been "Der Diva Faktor" - but I guess you wouldn´t have sold as much as you did with the current title.